WEBISODE 5

Trainees learn more team-building skills as they complete the confidence course. Then they head to the gas chamber where they learn the importance of well-maintained gas masks.

I’m Private Justin Erceg, I’m Private Harvey Degree.

Erceg:
Today when we arrived at the Confidence course, I was very excited to get started. I was not expecting as many obstacles as there was here.

Degree:
We had many different towers and rope obstacles. We had things that improve balance; anything we did included team work.

Erceg:
It definitely helped bring us together as battle buddies.

Degree:
I was in a group with a particular guys, that I never hung out with before. Never really got to know, and I got to bond with them today and we built a lot of team effort, and it really spawned from the confidence tower, that the first thing we did.

Erceg:
Fatigue definitely did kick in. And it made the obstacles that were at the end of the course a lot harder then they would have been if they were placed at the being of the course.

Degree:
My favorite event in the confidence course was the weaver. Were we have to weave our bodies in and out. It was the most difficult thing for me, the most challenging thing. After the confidence course we went over to the gas chamber.

Erceg:
I did some research before I came here on the gas chamber. Looking at it online has nothing to do with the experience itself.

Degree:
It was kind of creepy, it was like our nerves were going, our adrenaline was going.

Erceg:
When we first went in there, the gas was already going; I wasn’t expecting that at all.

Degree:
We had a guy panic enough, to where he took his mask off way ahead of time.

Erceg:
I was miserable when I first walked out the door, for the first couple of laps around the cones. But when I started walking down back to my platoon, I felt a lot better it was definitely, definitely a good experience. Getting a lot of the obstacle course and the gas chamber out of the way this week has definitely boosted my confidence.

Degree:
A lot of stress is off our minds to know that the confidence course and the gas chamber are completely out of the way now. We can just focus on things to come. Right now, I’m just looking forward to whatever is next.